I get several emails a day from this blog’s readers. The most frequent ones I get fall into one of these categories:

I want to get started with an online business but where do I start?

I am getting started in a new online business and I have committed the next few months to figuring this out

One is a question and one is a statement. The person that send that latter type of email with a statement of commitment is always 10 times further ahead in terms of mindset. And therefore has a MUCH greater chance of success.

So the first thing to do is commit to yourself that you are going to figure it out and stop relying on other for all your answers. You are starting your own business.

You will be a business owner. Take responsibility for it. Hold yourself accountable a commit.

If you don’t do that, you have already set yourself up to fail.

Yes there are some great training programs and helpful mentors out there, but the fact is that no one will take you all the way to success.

Only you can do that.

But beyond that, both of these emails (referenced at the beginning of the post) are very similar. The core message is that the sender is looking for direction.

Knowing the right place to start your business or bring new life to your business is probably the most critical thing to building a solid foundation for your online income.

In the world of the internet, there are offers, businesses, opportunities and systems to promote everywhere. The fact is that finding an offer is not really an issue as long as you know how to pick out a decent one that provides value.

But there is one thing everyone always wants more of, no matter what level your are on…

Traffic.

It all starts with traffic. If you have no traffic, you have no leads and you have no sales. So your offer or whatever you are promoting doesn’t really matter.

Its great that you have the latest technology, a high converting sales funnel, a killer email follow up, a high value offer and all the other over hyped everything…

But who care if you don’t have any eyeballs on it?

It means nothing without traffic.

It gets you nothing without traffic.

For this reason, I am going to copy part of an email I sent this morning to one of my readers. The person that sent this email made the statement that he was going to figure this online game out which is why I wrote this email in the first place.

It was very powerful for me to see this and helps renew my commitment to myself as well.

In response to that message, I sent this message.

It is meant to provide him, and now you, with the one assignment you have for success this year.

Here is your assignment:

———-Begin Email———-

The one most critical thing you do right now is FOCUS on learning ONE traffic method – whether it be blogging + SEO, PPC, solo ads, , , etc.

Focus on ONE and only one.

The biggest reason I see people have little or no success is because they get so scattered that they get frustrated, over whelmed, burned out, broke and then quit.

Focus on one traffic method only and make it work.

Learn the ins and outs of it.

Become an expert at that one traffic method.

When you are an expert at it and you know how to make it work, you will always have access to that traffic to grow your business.

Traffic is by far the biggest stumbling point for most people. So just commit to yourself to learn a single traffic method and you will be ahead of literally 99.9% of people trying to make a living online.

The fact is that when you have access to even one stream of traffic that you control, you can promote just about anything that will be related to your traffic.

If you can master even one source of traffic and convert relevant offers then you will have everything you need to have a successful online business – and to scale it up to as big as you feel like from there.

———-End Email———-

Please leave your thoughts and feedback in the comments below.

And Happy New Year to you and yours! Let’s build a successful one together!

If there is one constant in internet marketing, it is content. A content strategy is all about delivering information to your customers in every place they are likely to look for it, placing them at the centre of everything that you do. Like many other forms of internet marketing, content strategy must change and evolve each year to keep up with the growing demands of consumers and the ways in which they use the internet to find what they want.

Each year analysts give their own take on what techniques and practices a content strategy should embrace in order to be successful; here I will cover what I believe will be valuable in 2017.

What’s Your 2017 Content Strategy?

It’s all about mobile

In previous years, content strategists have been keen to talk about mobile content as the future – in 2017 the mobile is the here and now. You can’t escape the dominance of smartphones and tablets, and how many people are using these devices as their primary web-browsing source.

Producing content for desktop as well as mobile will mean making your content adaptive. Remember that some content will not work as effectively on mobile, particularly in the case of Flash video, but also with data visuals and some interactive content. A content strategy in 2017 will need to be mobile friendly.

A picture can say a thousand words

I am not saying that pictures are going to replace good old text, but this is 2017 and content has many faces. There has been a steady rise in the number of people using photo and picture content over the past year, with Instagram, Flickr, and Pinterest leading the way, and we can expect to see the trend continuing this year. Pictures are great way to display content and can add an extra dimension to your content strategy.

Using pictures is also a great way to share content across social media, with users readily attracted to visuals. Photos are by far and away the best performing post type on FaceBook pages as they command more real estate in comparison to text, especially on mobile where a single photo can take up the entire screen. Good photos also tend to receive more likes and shares, which can help get your content seen far and wide.

Guest posting

Guest posting is one of the top link building trends for 2017 and should be an integral part of any content strategy. Guest posting is a powerful way of building relationships that can help you enhance the value of your brand, develop new business opportunities, and form connections with like-minded professionals; however, it must be used correctly. If your intention for guest posting is purely to generate link juice, you may find yourself falling into the trap of creating low quality content in high volume.

Sadly, there is a lot of rubbish guest post content out there and this benefits no one – least of all those producing it. Guest posting is all about producing high-quality content on blogs that are relevant to your business. Use guest posting to help establish yourself as an expert in you field; becoming known as an authority will help gain respect with your target audience and enhance your changes of communicating and interacting with others.

Start recycling

Your content probably spans many different channels and social media types, and using these various avenues to recycle your content should be a big part of your web strategy in 2017. Recycling basically means taking the same content and repackaging it as something different; for instance, if you have written an eBook, you could take it and publish the content as five or six blog posts, record a video talking about the contents of the eBook, create an infographic, and made a slideshow presentation for a webinar. The more channels you have in which to share the content, the further you can stretch it out.

Sharing little by little

If you have a large amount of content ready to share, consider giving your audience a little bit at a time. Sharing in bite-size chunks will make your content last longer and it will keep visitors coming back for the next instalment – similar to how you tune in to your favourite TV show every week to see what’s going to happen next. If you’re incorporating this method of sharing into your content strategy for 2017, it is essential that you have built-in social sharing widgets – this will help your content spread across the web.

Maintain consistency

If there is one thing that top content marketing brands do well, it is maintaining a consistent schedule. Internet users are used to being spoiled by content and expect to see new posts on a daily basis. Aside from always producing quality content, you have to keep it coming in a steady stream. If this is something you cannot do on your own, consider outsourcing articles and blog posts to a content creation company. It is recommended that you make plans for new content about a month in advance.

Using the methods featured here should help your content strategy thrive in 2017; but remember: content is no longer just about text – it is about imagery, presentations, social ads, and videos. Embrace content in all its forms and use it to your advantage to create a strategy that really enhances your presence online.

The advancement of mobile technology over the last decade is taking leaps and bounds. What used to be the domain of personal computers in the years past is now being taken over by mobile internet. As such, there is now a shift from web campaigns towards mobile internet promotion.

Consumers, most especially in the last three years, are relying more and more on their mobile gadgets when they are browsing the internet. This means that there is no off-time when it comes to marketing your product or service. People are going to access the internet wherever and whenever they need to buy something.

To make your internet marketing relevant to present-day situation, you must take a drastic move towards improving your marketing style to cater to mobile users. Here are some strategies that you can deploy to ensure success in your mobile campaign:

While the percentage of non-social media usage may seem small, the numbers cannot be discounted considering the fact that there are millions of mobile users accessing the internet at any given time. More importantly, those who use productivity apps download a software precisely because it serves them a purpose.

Therefore, it is very important that you place your mobile campaign in apps that are relevant to your target audience. By focusing on apps that have bearing on your campaign, you are ensured that your cost per install or CPI achieves maximum efficiency. This means that as an advertiser, you will only pay for downloads done by consumers who see value on the ads that you placed in the relevant app.

Target Your Audience the Smart Way

Internet marketers before simply focus on the volume of visitors to their sites rather than the quality of their visitors. As such, they are contented with limiting the parameters of their user demographics to location, age, gender. The end goal before was to drive as many visitors to the site as possible, then just hope for the best.

The advancement in mobile technology now allows you to further set criteria in the placement of your advertisement. For example, you may want your ads to be seen only by the consumer when they reach the expert level of their game app. Or, you might want to ask from the developer what type of audience they have and if this audience fits your target market.

Why is this important?

By setting up very specific criteria, you are ensured that only those who fit your target market are likely to see your advertisement. You need to remember that anyone accessing the app where you placed your campaign can easily download your own app. And with each download, you are required to pay for the advertisement cost.

Without the stringent criteria based on your target, you may run the risk of paying more for advertisement than earning from those who clicked and downloaded your ads. Remember that it is easy for mobile users to install your app and even easier to uninstall it. In the meantime, your mobile campaign costs balloons without you seeing anything in return.

To make your mobile campaign effective, it is advisable to work with your ad network partner even before you launch your campaign. Sit down and discuss your specific needs and what exact type of consumers you are targeting. Not only will this save you time and financial resources, you are also assured that only quality consumers that fit your bill are reached by your campaign.

The Format of Your Mobile Ad Must Fit Your Campaign

There are various means by which you can present your mobile ads. However, the lingering question is “what is the most effective?” A considerable amount of resources have been spent on studies to identify which mobile ad format is most effective. Here are some examples that you may want to consider in your mobile ads campaign:

1. Native Ads
The first thing that you need to consider in placing a mobile ad is user experience. While you want and need your target audience to notice (and hopefully click your ad), you also do not want them to get annoyed by constant popping of your advertisement.

In short, your mobile campaign must not be unobtrusive. It must not, in anyway, disrupt the customer from whatever he is doing while online. Rather, your ads must fit impeccably within the app. While this does not ensure an influx of site visitors, you are assured that whoever clicks your ads is a highly valuable potential customer.

Why is that?

Remember, your ad is placed within an existing app that your target customer is using. If a customer spares some precious minutes to stop whatever he is doing within the app and click your ad, then he is highly likely to be interested in whatever you are offering.

Native ads such as this can deliver users of high-quality and with lifetime value. Again, the key to a successful placement of ad is user experience. Make your advertisement relevant and viewable by your targeted audience without disrupting their user experience.

2. Rewarded Video Ads
Videos have the ability to capture your audience’s attention that words cannot. When you present your advertisement via something viewable, you are engaging your target customer’s emotion. You can make them feel the sense of victory, the thrill and excitement of acquiring a new product, or even the ecstasy of a new discovery.

To make your video ad even more exciting for the user, incorporate it within the game app. You can collaborate with the game app developer to incorporate your app within the game. Players can be rewarded with extra coins or life or tools whenever they stop to view your ads. By doing this, you have your target’s complete attention for the whole span of your video ads.

The Golden Rules of Mobile Ads Creative

1. Customized mobile advertisement
While it is very tempting to use existing web advertisements of mobile internet, there are a number of important considerations you need to look into. For one, does your existing advertisement rotate the way mobile users handle their devices?

Secondly, web creatives such as Lightbox image galleries, flash creatives, log-in entry to mobile sites, and modal pop-ups might not work effectively with mobile gadgets. You need, therefore, to create an advertisement designed specifically for the intricacies of mobile internet access. Again, user experience is a huge consideration when creating a mobile ad.

2. Less is Definitely More
Do not clutter your advertisement with too much information. Provide your target audience with just enough enticement for them to click your ads. More importantly, avoid using links that disrupt the user experience through accidental clicking. There is nothing more annoying than having a user diverted to a page he has no intention of visiting. Keep your ad text concise and give your target consumer enough room to maneuver from text to link.

3. Test Your Ads Before Launching
Before you launch your mobile ad, test it first within the mobile environment. Ensure that your target market will have an enjoyable experience clicking through your ads by identifying kinks and fixing them.

Always keep in mind that you are eyeing a specific group of consumers; make sure that you provide them with reliable links and fruitful experience visiting your ads.

If you’re a small business owner and you want your business to reap the benefits of being on the internet, you’ll need to focus on attracting traffic to your website.

There are a lot of options when it comes to generating traffic, but here are the top 3 most popular ones:

Blogs

Some owners of traditional businesses tend to dismiss blogs altogether. They ignore it because they believe it is more important to focus on sales over building relationship with customers. They don’t want to spend time and effort to get a blog to rank and they are usually unfamiliar with the intricacies of page optimization.

It’s just so much easier to buy advertising space on existing popular websites. However, it can become a ridiculously expensive exercise even in the short term. Advertising should not only pay for itself, it should also help you crack new markets and build up a loyal customer base – exactly what a blog can do for your business.

A properly ranked blog can be considered a gold mine when it comes to getting new sales. A high ranking website with steady amount of targeted traffic is well worth the effort to build up.

Don’t be afraid of the seemingly insurmountable leads of established websites on the internet. There are a multitude of keyword search combinations that you can dominate and profit from. With the importance being given to local search, you now have the opportunity to compete for and dominate the traffic in an area that is relevant to your business.

Social Media Page

The total number of Facebook users has already surpassed 1 billion. Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn have user populations easily in the millions and these are only figures for the more popular sites. Niche social networking sites have their own following too.

As a business owner, it would be illogical to ignore these numbers, especially when access to them is virtually free. If you want more people to know about your business, then you have to have a presence here.

Social networking is here to stay. It has revolutionized how people use the internet in much the same way the World Wide Web did. You can even consider it as one of the important requirements when you’re setting up a business.

Youtube

It’s the 2nd largest search engine albeit it focuses only on the videos in its database. Still, it has a huge amount of video content that gets around 3 billion page views every day. With a bit of effort, you can host your own video and use that to funnel viewers to your blog or website.

The catch here is that you really have to create quality content to get people to view your video. Aside from creating valuable video content, you’ll need to work on sharing and spreading word about your video.

Before you even consider the paid sources, you should be maximizing what traffic you can get from these sites. They offer a cost effective source of quality traffic for your website.

Targeted traffic for your small business shouldn’t cost you an arm and a leg. The effort you put in to develop these traffic sources will pay for themselves in the long run.

The subject line is a critical component of your newsletter and marketing email. It acts much like a newspaper headline; its job is to get your attention and tell something about the top news for the day. A great subject line will get a person interested enough to want to open the email you sent.

Short and sweet is the perfect phrase to sum up what makes a great headline. Here are some of its characteristics:

Gives an idea of the content

Instills a sense of urgency

Clear and Concise

Appeals to subscriber’s interests

Elicits curiosity

There are a ton of best practices being touted by online experts. Some of these you need to do and cannot afford to skip. Others are more situational and will require a bit of trial and error on your part.

Here are some tips for writing an effective Email Subject Line:

Keep within the subject line’s character limit. You’ll want to make sure you get the most impact out of the space provided. A subject like with too many words will likely be cut and won’t look neat. The total number of visible characters varies depending on the user’s settings on his email program, his screen resolution, and what devices he uses it on.

Here are the counts for the most commonly used email clients:

Yahoo Mail (new version) – 46 characters

gMail – 70 characters

iPhone – 41 characters portrait mode, 64 characters landscape mode.

Avoid Spam Filters. There are two things that are commonly used as triggers for spam filters: an email address from a domain name with a bad reputation; and specific keywords on the subject line. You have direct control over both. When it comes to the subject line, avoid using words that everyone will likely filter. Words like “Viagra” are a good example. Check your spam mail folder to see other examples of words you should avoid.

Tone and Choice of words should fit your subscribers. You might be tempted to use some jargon in your subject line to make it sound authoritative, or you might go in the opposite direction and use some colloquial terms. If you want to make sure your email isn’t ignored, you need to match the vocabulary of your mailing list. Keep in mind the composition of the audience you’re sending the email to.

Copy best practices. Don’t cut and paste. Copy or better yet, get inspiration from marketers who have been successful in the email marketing field. You’ll learn a lot just by reading through the title of the emails you received from them. Save subject lines that worked well for you, especially ones that you’ve read and made you open a particular email

Here are some other tips you can try:

Use a question as your subject line. These can be excellent calls to action.

WIFM or what’s in it for me. emphasize potential value of email

Avoid these words: Free, Help, Discount

Familiarity helps. Make use of headlines referencing local topics, places, or people.

Share not Sell. A customer follows your list because they find value in your product. Don’t use it to push sales all the time or you risk getting filtered out.

Add your Brand to the Subject line. Do this only if your brand has established a reputation.

Remember; a good headline should make someone take notice of your email; an effective email subject line makes one want to read the whole email.

There has been a huge surge of popularity in Online Education in recent years. Course credits can be earned for free without even attending college. Everything is done in the comfort of your home or office. This revolution in education has significantly changed how a person can attain a degree or certification.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) are now available to anyone who has a decent Internet connection. A lot of people are taking advantage of this free resource to improve their job and business prospects. The fact that it’s generally free further enhances its usefulness and popularity.

There are several different organizations online that offer degrees and continued education through the MOOC model. Even the prestigious Ivy League schools have jumped in on the bandwagon. As a business owner or entrepreneur, this free resource is hard to ignore and can be used to further improve business operations at very minimal costs.

Aside from commonly stated reasons like improving your stock knowledge, learning new things, and spicing up your résumé, studying online courses offers other potential benefits to you as a business owner. You, as the owner, should learn how to take advantage of it first, and then you can show the benefits to your team. You need to prove that investing time in these courses can actually help them grow their own career.

Here are a couple of ideas that may make you consider adding MOOCs to your business improvement plans:

Have your Employees enroll and complete the classes as part of their on the job training. It can also become an ongoing team building activity. A course that’s related to their roles or the company’s line of business would be the best pic.

Upgrade your employee’s people skills. Some courses focus on interaction with people and gauging their behavior. There are also courses that tackle marketing and sales. These are very useful lessons especially if you want to train your team to become more effective sales representatives.

If your employees do a lot of writing on different topics, finishing a course can add a new topic that can be written about. This will help your employees along to becoming Subject Matter Experts. You should notice an improvement when they are writing about a topic that is related to the course.

You can offer incentives to your staff to finish a course that is completely in line with the nature of your business. These can improve employee morale while at the same time; sharpen the skills of your team. You can offer a few bonuses to each staff that shows improvement after they finish the online course. A good example are the numerous web design courses available; if you’re in the business of selling these courses, improving your customer support staff’s knowledge in this area can only bring benefits to your business.

If you have a bit of time on your hands, you might want to browse the course offerings from some of the most well known MOOC organizations :

These organizations are supported by well known universities. With the exception of a few for-profit ones like Coursera, a majority of the established and upcoming MOOCs are generally non-profit.

Successful companies consider continuous improvement and employee training as important components of sustained success. They should be part of your long term plan too. Initially, you should improve your own knowledge base, and then you should develop your own team eventually. You should consider these activities as important cornerstones for your company’s success.

One of the most powerful features of the WordPress blogging platform is its huge library of plug-ins. These plug-ins are generally designed to enhance the functionality of a blog. There are also those that specialize in blog search engine optimization.

Here are 10 SEO WordPress plugins that will help improve your blog’s ranking:

Akismet

Spam messages in your comment section not only clutter it up, but it also posts potential security risks for you and those reading your blog. The Akismet plug-in helps you minimize and even eliminate spam posts on your site. You’ll appreciate how much time its automated spam filtering function saves you. This is especially important when you’re managing a blog with hundreds and even thousands of pages of content. You shouldn’t be spending more time cleaning your comment section than you are writing useful content.

Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin performs an important service for your blog. It generates a sitemap which helps the major search engines index your site. These search engines rely heavily on the links present in web sites to track and index pages. Since each page has its own website link, having it present on several other pages increases the chances of it getting indexed. A sitemap basically acts as list of pages on your site so it is important to make sure that it’s complete and made available for indexing.

Yoast’s WordPress SEO

This is a premium plug-in that installs enhanced SEO functions on your blog. It extends the standard SEO capabilities of the WordPress blog package. It’s a boon for bloggers who want to improve optimization for their content.

All in One SEO Pack

This plugin helps you with setting up the descriptions and meta tags on your system. This is a critical aspect of SEO that affects how a search engine categorizes your site. Being able to check for missing or inaccurate tags can affect how easily your site becomes visible on a search engine’s results page.

WordPress Importer

This useful plugin provides you with the ability to import entries from different blog platforms. This is useful for people who have blogs focused on curating material from several sources.

SEO Pressor

This plug in reduces the work you need to do to optimize your site. Its automated process analyzes your sites and provides a quick report on what needs to be fixed. An important feature of this package is the ability to check for over-optimization in your work. It makes sure you are sticking to the guidelines set by Google’s rules on search engine ranking. This helps you avoid getting penalized.

WP Social

This plug in helps you improve your ranking by providing integrated SEO and Social Media features for your blog. Since Social Media has a tremendous impact on a search engine’s ranking of your site, a coordinated approach to optimization and social sharing can boost the visibility of your blog.

SEO Friendly Images

This plug in will automatically update the alt and title attributes of all the images on your blog. It makes it easier for search engines to categorize your blog based on the images it contains. This improves the chances that your blog will come up on the search engine results page due to an image that matches the search term entered by a user.

SEO Content Control

This plug is a big help in dealing with duplicate content. It great for keeping track of which posts have too little content, and points out missing excerpts or meta descriptions. You get a useful dashboard that shows a summary of your blog at a glance.

Tentblogger’s SEO Site map

A small, but very useful plug in that helps you generate sitemaps. It’s lightweight but gets the job done out of the box. It automatically tracks blog changes and notifies Google or Bing when there’s one.

It is recommended that you install at least 1 or 2 of these. Try them out to find which suits you or seems more responsive. Remember not to overload your blog too. It becomes difficult to edit when there are too many plug-ins working at the same time.

For this list I’ll be concentrating on online home businesses for women. Initially, I wanted to make a list of jobs that a single mom can do at home, but realized it actually applies to just about any woman too.

Aside from jobs that target female customers, there are also jobs that really only work if there’s a woman taking care of it. These usually involve customer service type roles, telemarketing, coaching and counseling.

Any stay at home mom or woman can probably earn a bit from the more in demand jobs. Almost any online job can be done by anyone regardless of gender, but in some cases, a female touch is preferred. There are some jobs that just work better with a feminine touch.

On to the list:

Voice customer support. Women have an edge here because of their voice. Typically a woman’s voice will sound more comforting or trustworthy over the phone. This makes it better for dealing with customers, especially the irate ones. Of course it may not be as enjoyable, but if handled well, a veteran voice support customer agent will be able to take care of a difficult customer.

Voice talent. In the same vein as a voice customer agent, a feminine voice will often sound better when explaining or selling certain products. A good example of these types of products is make-up and clothing.

Fashion & Makeup blogger. Speaking of Fashion, blogs specializing in this topic usually have good traffic. As in offline business, this is primarily the domain of female bloggers. This is because they are the biggest consumers of fashion, whether clothing, make-up or perfume, and many more items.

Counseling. A well trained telephone counselor can work wonders. A female counselor naturally sounds sympathetic which is important when counseling people in need.

Telemarketing. On the other hand, a sincere and sympathetic sounding voice also works in Telemarketing. Especially when trying to overcome a lead’s objections.

Niche Consulting. Some niches are dominated by women experts. This is where they can come in to offer their services.

Tutoring. Academic subjects like math and grammar can now be taught remotely through video conference. A woman can take advantage of the impression that female teachers are more effective when teaching elementary school kids.

Craft making. Some crafts women excel in their art. Similar to fashion, special hand crafted items have more women customers. If you have a knack for making interesting stuff. You can market it online to earn some cash. You might even end up with a loyal customer base that’ll snap- up items you’ve made.

This list isn’t an exhaustive one or is it even a fixed one. Some of these jobs can probably be done by talented guys too. A lot of these jobs will likely evolve to something else altogether. It all really depends on whether there is a demand for it. But it is always good to know what is available right now and which ones you have an edge in.

Home based worker numbers are increasing and it’s not just freelancers. Major companies are now seriously exploring this work model too. This is mainly due to the cost and time advantages that are very attractive to both employer and worker. I prefer to call this work model “internet jobs at home” because the trend wouldn’t have been possible without the internet.

Whether you’re, a freelancer or full-time remote worker, internet jobs at home feature a lot of sought after perks. At the same time, there are also a few seemingly minor pitfalls that you need to get on top of before they ruin your whole internet jobs at home experience.

I’ve listed down some of the perks that people often mention when working at home.

Frees up time – this is the single biggest draw to working at home. Time that would’ve been used for traveling to work can now be spent on other productive work, family or personal development.

More relaxed work environment – since there are no dress codes, minimal office politics and no direct supervision, worker stress is significantly reduced.

Fewer resources are spent – this is true for both the company and the worker. Businesses reduce expenses on facilities and equipment. Workers save money on gas, meals and clothes. It’s more environmentally friendly too, if you like keeping track of the reduction in emissions.

Pitfalls are present but are generally easy to mitigate. Most actually come from abusing the benefits provided by internet jobs at home.

Susceptible to working beyond reasonable hours – typically experienced by workers who want to earn extra on the time freed up by working at home. There’s also the income factor: home based work earns lower pay and the best way to make up the difference is to take on multiple jobs. Work-life balance is affected because some people just don’t know where to stop. The end result is worker burn-out which is ironic because working from home is supposed to help avoid it in the first place.

Quality of work suffers due to lack of supervision – only an issue if worker is not result oriented. Self-supervision is a skill that has to be present before someone tries to work out of the office. It must be continually developed to ensure that productivity and professionalism are preserved.

Isolation from work colleagues – this can be a problem if a home based worker doesn’t have an easily accessible support group. There are plenty of forums online that can help out. Networking with people from the same company and regular web cam meetings also help.

Too many distractions that affect productivity – this is can be fixed by ample preparations and a disciplined approach to work. The easiest solution is to work in separate area of the house that is isolated from the usual house hold activities. Online distractions are another matter and require self-discipline and dedication to work.

To make working from home a truly productive and enjoyable experience, here are a few reminders you might want to note down:

Schedule your work – stick to a schedule. You might be at home and your bedroom easy to reach, but you’ll discover how hard it is to get plenty of sleep once you start working. Scheduling your work properly will keep you sane and productive.

Schedule Vacations – working from home is not a vacation; no matter how often regular workers tell you. You need a break from work and your surroundings from time to time. Vacations refresh you and make you a better worker. Try to go on one at least a few times a year.

Get moving! – it may seem like its healthier but working from home regularly tends to exacerbate a sedentary lifestyle. Implement a health regimen and stick to it religiously. Take quick breaks often when you’re working just to stand up and walk around for a few minutes. Rest your eyes too, from time to time and try to keep a glass of water or juice nearby to keep you hydrated.

A Remote customer support representative performs the same duties as a regular support representative in a regular call center. The main difference is that the representative is working remotely; at home, in a remote office or in a café.

The concept isn’t new and a large chunk of freelancers work as remote customer support. Remote customer support representatives are usually employed by small start-ups who are maximizing their budget.

Internet jobs at home like remote customer support aren’t limited by a scope of responsibility. Since workload can vary and can even be seasonal, a representative is often called upon to do other tasks.

Freelancers who have other usable skills have a definite edge over the rest. A job in customer support entails a lot of communication and this same skill can be re-purposed for other related tasks. Reps can be assign tasks like writing process flows, product descriptions, and even training new support reps.

Usual tasks of a remote customer support representative:

Product orientation – guide a customer through the setup of a product, its assembly or activation.

Product Support – provide information on how a customer can fix common issues or answer questions about the product.

Billing inquiries- check on the status of a customer’s payment history

Payment processing- accept and post payment over the phone

Price quote creation- create a price quote for specific products that the customer wants to order

Pay varies but is typically higher for technical support jobs. Rates for a voice support agent starts at around $4. It can go higher depending on the expertise required for the product being supported. There are also considerations for special skills such as fluency in other languages and qualifications like Cisco Certification. Competition can be tough since this is one of the internet jobs at home that really deliver good money.

Technical support can be quite lucrative especially if you have the required knowledge and experience to do remote monitoring and maintenance. There are freelancers who support multiple servers and there are also those who specialize in a particular application like VOIP. They aren’t the designers or coders for the system but they have enough knowhow to isolate problems and even fix the minor ones.

Anyone working on internet jobs at home should expect lots of phone time. Customer support is best handled through a phone where there is real time interaction. This type interaction helps to resolve issues quicker. It is critical that you have a work area that’s free from distraction and loud ambient noise.

If you plan to start on this line of work you’ll need to make sure you have the following:

Excellent call handling

Above average communication skills both written and oral

Familiar with troubleshooting methods

A quiet, distraction free work area

Reliable internet connection that can ensure high quality voice communication

When you work as a remote customer support representative you should expect to get a few nasty calls from time to time. These types of calls are more prevalent if the customers you’re supporting are experiencing frustration with the product or service.